‘I think it's here': Uprooted Afghan family settles in Chicago after being rescued ahead of refugee program suspension

Chicago Tribune

17-05-2025

The route to Kilmer Elementary School is about a mile and a half each way for Hamid Azizi, who heads out every afternoon to walk his daughters home. What would seem like a mundane activity for most is a joyous occasion for the father of seven, who arrived in Chicago a little more than a month ago.
The 30-minute walk has been Azizi's easiest journey in many years.
At the start of the summer of 2021, his family fled its village in Afghanistan, moving quickly and often to evade the Taliban, which swiftly took control after United States armed forces began withdrawing from the region following a 20-year war.
'We were very, very worried about our situation,' Azizi, who speaks Dari, told the Tribune through a translator on a recent Tuesday afternoon at his apartment in the North Side neighborhood of West Ridge. 'Once the Americans left, we could not live in our own city where we grew up or in the other cities that I went to (with U.S. troops) because if anybody knew me and saw me, just to get some credit, they would tell the Taliban, 'This man worked with Americans.' I had to keep moving.'
Azizi, 41, is one of thousands of Afghans who were waiting to resettle in the U.S. after being promised safety and relocation for serving alongside American troops as a member of the National Mine Removal Group, or NMRG. He assisted U.S. special forces in various zones in Afghanistan from 2017 until 2021, and received a Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV, intended to facilitate the resettlement of individuals who have risked their lives by collaborating with the U.S. government.
Despite the stamp cemented in his passport for years, Azizi and his family had to find help on their own, and be rescued by organizations such as No One Left Behind after President Donald Trump's inauguration added a sense of urgency.
Days after taking office, Trump signed an executive order that suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, pausing foreign aid and ending operations of U.N. organizations such as the International Organization for Migration that were vital for processing refugees. The administration also suspended government programs that buy flights for refugees who have SIVs.
'We found ourselves in this interesting situation where you had Special Immigrant Visa holders who were still being processed, but there were no flights for them to travel on because they basically had to buy their own flights,' said Andrew Sullivan, executive director of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit focused on evacuating Afghan and Iraqi SIV applicants to safety. 'For many of these folks, they left their lives behind in Afghanistan. Many of them have been sitting on a State Department processing platform in either Albania or Qatar. It's not like they can work there. They really just don't have the finances to buy flights.'
Sullivan said the executive order thwarted thousands of families' prospects for resettlement, a process that often takes years. And many of those families, like Azizi's, have been on the run.
Within a month of U.S. troops leaving, Azizi had to flee from Parwan, his home province where the U.S. military had a significant presence.
His wife and six daughters —his son, the youngest of seven children, wasn't yet born — kept a few essential items and hid in homes of various relatives in nearby provinces and villages, staying mere weeks or days at a time.
'(The relative whose home we were staying in) would say 'don't leave, because (the Taliban) are all over the village. Don't go out, because they're going to get you. You're safe in the house until they find you,'' Azizi recalled. 'But after that, (the relative) said we couldn't stay anymore because it was dangerous for them, and then in two, three days, we went to another relative's house, which was by the river.'
With the Taliban rapidly taking over rural areas, Azizi said his family went to the bordering city of Kabul, the country's capital, 'because it had not fallen yet.' Azizi's wife, Fahima, knew a family in Kabul who took them in for a couple months.
But on Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban seized control of Kabul, signaling a full recapture of Afghanistan. Civilians soon swarmed Kabul's main international airport hoping to evacuate.
Azizi said his family attempted to get on a plane out of Kabul.
'We were one of the people that went to the airport. They were flying everywhere and there were barriers and everything. But my younger daughter, Zhra, stayed behind. I couldn't take it that my daughter won't have a family, won't have a father, a mother. I can't just go and leave her behind,' Azizi said. 'We all went back from the airport. We got her, and from there we stayed but at that time we knew the Taliban said, 'We have forgiven everybody, blanket forgiveness — but not for people who worked for the Americans.''
Will Reno, a professor at Northwestern University, said the images out of Kabul's airport were a stark representation of America's frantic departure from a country it occupied for 20 years.
'That first day or two was chaos when there were people on the airfield grabbing onto the landing gear of the aircraft — that got that very bad, politically, pictures like that,' said Reno, who was a contractor for the Department of Defense while the U.S. was involved in Afghanistan.
Reno said in the days following the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban takeover, there was a rush to get high-priority groups such as military intelligence and Afghan special forces that trained American soldiers onto evacuation aircrafts. He explained that President Joe Biden's administration was late in getting a system in place that would effectively vet and process all SIV holders and their families, leaving many, like Azizi, to flee, as the situation with the Taliban became increasingly dangerous for them.
Despite the desperate circumstances, Azizi shared fond memories of working with U.S. troops.
'Those times were our best memories; they were like our brothers,' Azizi said. 'We will eat together, either on the floor, or if we find a table, we'll all sit together. If, God forbid, one of us got injured or something like that, we all would get together, be around him like a family. So the relationship was very nice, very beautiful and brotherly.'
As a member of the National Mine Removal Group, Azizi's team was the first line of defense for American soldiers, clearing hazardous devices off a battlefield and seeking out snipers trying to target U.S. troops. Azizi said there were several teams of NMRG personnel stationed across the war zone. One of his friends was a guard with the NMRG and immigrated to the U.S. on an SIV years before the war ended, when the U.S. still had an embassy in Afghanistan.
In Kabul, Azizi's family continued moving around, hiding in homes of friends and acquaintances. This went on for several months, Azizi said.
The family finally found a reason for optimism after connecting with the 1208 Foundation, a nonprofit providing immigration assistance to the surviving members of the NMRG. The organization helped the Azizi family cross into the last leg of its tireless run and eventually paved the way for No One Left Behind to link up with Azizi's family.
Eventually, Azizi's family left Kabul for Islamabad, Pakistan, where they lived for 11 months. Through a website launched by No One Left Behind, Azizi was able to fill out an online form to share his visa status and resettlement plans.
They didn't have much in terms of money or food, 'but plenty of hope,' Azizi said.
Life on the run was especially hard on Fahima, who gave birth to her son, Mohamad, at home without medical care, all while caring for her six other children.
In January, No One Left Behind helped Azizi and his family fly to Doha, Qatar, where the organization had sent many Afghans and Iraqis who have already immigrated to the U.S., many through the SIV program, to help facilitate the process.
The endgame was America, but Azizi said he knew the 'situation with Trump' was not ideal for refugees seeking asylum.
Anticipating even more upcoming limitations for Afghans, and the looming threat of the Trump administration introducing a travel ban that could restrict their entry, No One Left Behind urgently started tapping into existing infrastructure and raised money to buy flights for families and individuals in places such as Albania and Qatar.
Between Feb. 1 and March 17, the group said it successfully booked flights for 659 Afghans.
And since they began this 'all-out sprint,' Sullivan said, No One Left Behind has spent $1.5 million on 1,300 flights for stranded Afghans with a U.S. visa.
'Life is not easy for people who just come from one place to another place, especially for kids,' Azizi said, looking around his new home. 'We were very, very happy when they told us, especially when we're leaving the (hotel) room and there was a bus to take us to the airport. It was a different feeling … we are really going right now.'
After 50 days in Doha, Azizi's family got on a flight to Chicago. No One Left Behind covered the cost of their one-way flights from Doha International Airport to O'Hare International Airport.
'When they told us we are going to take you all, buy tickets for all of you, and you don't have to pay it back — wow, (we asked) how is that going to be possible?' Azizi said. 'We couldn't believe it.'
In West Ridge, a volunteer from No One Left Behind comes by weekly to help the family with chores or tasks that require an English speaker. She carries around an English/Dari phrasebook and flips through it regularly, but uses the Google Translate app for faster communication.
She helped set up Azizi's three-bedroom apartment off Devon Avenue, furnished with just enough: two comfortable couches, a dining table with six chairs, a bookshelf fashioned into a shoe rack stacked with tiny sandals and sneakers. There isn't a TV, so Azizi's cellphone is typically where his youngest children, Mohamad and Hfsah, watch cartoons on YouTube.
Azizi laughed that his phone is not his anymore.
Although No One Left Behind offers resettlement assistance to several of the refugees it helps, Sullivan said the group prefers sending its families and individuals to cities in America where they know someone — even just a friend. If there isn't any contact person, the group will send Afghans to areas with a higher volume of Afghan refugees, such as Sacramento, San Francisco or the greater Washington, D.C., area, so there's a sense of community and shared language.
In Azizi's case, he got in touch with his friend from the NMRG who resettled in Chicago while the U.S. was still in Afghanistan. The friend invited the family to stay at his home for a couple weeks, then borrowed $3,000 to give to Azizi to secure a month's rent for their apartment.
The No One Left Behind volunteer set up a GoFundMe for Azizi's family to help raise money that could go toward rent and basic necessities.
The situation for Afghans has become more fragile in some of the places where many have temporarily sheltered, like Azizi's family did in Pakistan. Having hosted millions of refugees, Pakistan has recently increased deportations. And an agreement that made Albania a way station for Afghans expired in March, Sullivan said.
Sullivan said for individuals like Azizi who have SIV status, going back to Afghanistan was not an option.
'If they got deported, they would, by definition, go back to a Taliban-controlled immigration checkpoint and fly back into Kabul, where they would be greeted by Taliban immigration authorities who would see their passport and see a U.S. visa in it,' he said. 'We very much worry that it would very much open them up to questioning at the very least, and at the worst, detention, torture and possibly murder from the Taliban.'
During the final months of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, an American documentary film crew followed the intimate relationship between American Green Berets and the Afghan officers they trained. Since its release in 2022, the film 'Retrograde' faced criticism for failing to protect the identities of its subjects, leading to the killing of one of the Afghan men by the Taliban.
Earlier this month, the Hollywood Reporter wrote that the man's family is suing the producers and distributors of the documentary, including Disney and National Geographic, faulting them for the man's death.
Azizi said he was also featured in the film and knew of the man who was killed by the Taliban.
Had he not found his way out, Azizi said, he might have faced a similar fate, or would have had to endure the harsh restrictions of Taliban rule. Fahima would not be allowed to work or move freely, and their six daughters wouldn't be allowed post-secondary education.
When he drops his daughters off at school and picks them up — both times on foot — he said he often thinks about all the what-if's.
His 14-year-old daughter Surya has dreams of becoming a doctor. His youngest daughter, Hfsah, 4, wants to be a hairstylist. Roya, 13, would love to be a teacher.
When the girls enrolled at Kilmer, the culture shock and language barrier made going to school dreadful. But now, Azizi said, he watches them run up to their teachers in the morning and looks on as they're immediately enveloped in a hug.
'I'm super proud and full of happiness,' he said.
While fleeing from place to place, Azizi said, the family often took pictures to capture the memories of being in each location. Even though circumstances were far from ideal, he said they were together, safe, healthy. It was worth capturing. They have pictures in Pakistan, in Doha, and now in Chicago, as they traverse the new neighborhood curiously.
A few weeks ago, Azizi said, as he was taking a selfie with his children, his daughter Sarah, 7, turned to him and asked, 'Baba, where are we going next?'
Azizi wiped his tears as he recounted that moment.
'Because we were leaving every city, going to different places, my little girl was thinking maybe America is not home as well,' Azizi said. 'I said, Sarah jaan, we are not going anywhere. I think it's here.'